Shelagh Delaney RIP

Shelagh Delaney (1939-2011) died this weekend. She achieved many things, but will always be primarily remembered for A Taste of Honey, the play she wrote when she was just 18 years old in 1958. As her Guardian obituary mentions 'A Taste of Honey showed working-class women from a working-class woman's point of view, had a gay man as a central and sympathetic figure, and a black character who was neither idealised nor a racial stereotype'. This was recognised from the start, with Colin MacInnes stating in a 1959 review in Encounter that it was ‘… the first English play I’ve seen in which a coloured man, and a queer boy, are presented as natural characters, factually without a nudge or shudder. It is also the first play I can remember about working-class people that entirely escapes being a “working class play”: no patronage, no dogma, just the thing as it is, taken straight’.

Of course both Taste of Honey and Delaney's subsequent The Lion in Love had a huge influence on Morrissey and The Smiths, as summarised  by Passions Just Like Mine:

'Delaney's "A Taste Of Honey" features the following lines which were adapted by Morrissey mainly for the Smiths' "Reel Around The Fountain" and "This Night Has Opened My Eyes", but also other songs: "I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice"; "You told me not to trust men calling themselves Smith."; "That river, it's the color of lead."; "I'm not sorry and I'm not glad"; "Oh well, the dream's gone, but the baby's real enough"; "It's a long time, six months"; "You can't just wrap it up in a bundle of newspaper. And dump it on a doorstep."; "I'll probably never see you again"; "I don't owe you a thing"; "As merry as the day is long"; "Sing me to sleep"; "You want taking in hand"; "It's your life, ruin it your own way.".

Delaney's "The Lion In Love" features the lines "I think we've courted long enough, it's time our tale was told"; "I'll probably never see you again"; "Cash on the nail"; "Anything's hard to find if you go around looking for it with your eyes shut"; "I'd sooner spit in everybody's eye"; "I'll go out and get a job tomorrow / you needn't bother" ; "Nell: And getting nowhere fast. Andy: These things take time."; "Pagliacci - that's me"; "Shall I tell you something? I don't like your face"; "ten-ton truck"; "Do I owe you anything"; "Tied to his mother's apron strings" which also appear in similar form in various songs penned by Morrissey. The line "So rattle her bones all over the stones, she's only a beggar-man whom nobody owns" also appears almost word for word in Morrissey's "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" although it must be said that this line had previously appeared in James Joyce's "Ulysses" and even earlier in English poet Thomas Noel's "The Pauper's Funeral". Still, Morrissey's most direct inspiration is very likely the Delaney source'.

And Delaney's image graced two Smiths covers.

 

Delaney on the cover of Girlfriend in a Coma

Delaney on the cover of Louder than Bombs

Interesting to reflect on the similarities between Delaney and Morrissey, both from working class Manchester/Salford families of Irish origin. In fact that Manchester Irish proletarian perspective is a major influence on 'English' popular culture, isn't it? Shaun Ryder/Happy Mondays would be another example.

(The Beatles also recorded A Taste of Honey, a song originally written for the Broadway version of the play; their song Your Mother Should Know lifted its title from the play)